


It's Okay

by artemisaro



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 06:50:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11270226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artemisaro/pseuds/artemisaro
Summary: Nico hasn't been the same since he returned to Camp Half-Blood. Will's there to teach him that sometimes it's okay to not be okay, but they can get through it together.





	It's Okay

Nico had to learn to be okay. He knew that eventually everyone’s pity for him would run out, and then he’d be stuck in a place he couldn’t get out from. He needed to be okay as quickly as possible. Everyone else seemed to be managing it perfectly well, even Percy and Annabeth, who had gone through the exact same things he had.

He began by pretending. If any of his friends asked how he was doing, he would lie. It was easier than telling the truth and having to answer their questions and burn through the pity that was sure to end sooner than he would have liked it to. Somehow, Nico got through each day, letting the nightmares plague him at night without a word to anybody.

The doctor’s visits Will had prescribed him were helpful, sometimes, but only in healing him physically. He wasn’t fading away anymore, though sometimes he felt as though he still might drift away and leave his body stranded at Camp Half-Blood. Sometimes that was the more tempting option.

At some point, Nico stopped talking almost entirely. It was easier to lie if he just kept his mouth shut in the first place. It was easier to pretend like nothing was going wrong if his voice wouldn’t betray him as soon as he tried to speak.

Nobody really noticed. Those who would have were moving on. Reyna, Jason, and the others went back to Camp Jupiter, and Annabeth and Percy went home. Even Will reluctantly left for the fall, called back home to start high school, even if it was a year late. Nico didn’t have a home to go back to.

Eventually, it seemed as though people stopped noticing Nico. He left the Hades cabin less and less frequently, sometimes only to watch the campfire from afar and remember what it had been like when he’d first come to Camp Half-Blood. He found himself wishing he could go back to those days, when everything was exciting and it was like his favorite game had come to life. His thumb rubbed gently against the small Hades figurine he’d kept in his pocket ever since Percy had told him Bianca had died.

Chiron tried to get Nico to talk. He told stories of his own: experiences with the Party Ponies, tales of old heroes, even stories of things Nico had been there to experience himself. Every Wednesday night, when the rest of Camp had gone to bed, Nico would find himself sitting out by the lake with Chiron, listening to stories. It was one of the few times he actually felt like himself. Still, he didn’t speak.

New campers began to start rumors about Nico. That he wasn’t actually alive, that all children of Hades were actually just ghosts because they weren’t claimed until after they had died. That made Nico smile, if only a little bit. Neither he nor Hazel really had any right being alive in the 21st century, but the new campers didn’t know that.

When June came around, Nico stayed in his cabin more and more often. Summer meant the arrival of more people he cared about. Will would be coming back, and there was supposed to be a reunion between the demigods of Camp Jupiter and Camp Half-Blood. Nico was half-tempted to find a way into the Underworld for a portion of time during that, but he decided a confrontation with his father would be far worse than one with his friends. Nonetheless, he continued to avoid them.

The nightmares were getting worse. It had been over a year since Tartarus, but it felt like a part of Nico was still down there, fighting for his life though nobody would even know if he failed. It had been a year since he’d been violently outed, and though the world had proven itself to be far more accepting than he ever could have imagined, he could still imagine the voices of his friends as they turned against him for something he’d been told to keep a secret since he was very very young.

“Nico?” The pounding on the door to the Hades cabin was becoming insistent and difficult to ignore. At first it had only been one person, but Nico could hear the number of voices growing outside.

How could he face his friends like this? He hadn’t slept in days and there would be no way he could convince any of them that he was alright. And if they saw even a glimpse of how much he was struggling? They had all gotten through it, so why couldn’t he?

“Gods damn it, Nico, we’ll break down the door if we have to!” Nico wasn’t sure who the voice belonged to, but it sent his heart into overdrive. He curled himself into a small ball on the bed, pretending like he wasn’t in there. The knocking on the door grew more insistent, causing Nico to only further curl in on himself.

All of the oxygen seemed to escape Nico’s lungs. It was like he was back in that damn jar, listening to what was going on outside in his brief moments of consciousness. He hadn’t even imagined he’d live through that. At times he felt like he hadn’t, like it would haunt him for the rest of his life. That and Tartarus and all the rest of it.

The pounding dulled to background noise as Nico was thrust into a memory; his thoughts and senses overwhelmed by panic and fear.

\---

When Will left camp to go back to school, he had wanted to take Nico with him. He hadn’t given a damn about the monsters that were sure to be drawn to the other boy or the fact that there was no extra space in his house for him to stay. He just hadn’t wanted to leave Nico alone, but it turned out it had to have been done anyway.

Foolishly, Will had hoped that Nico would get better with time. He’d asked his father to look after Nico, but it seemed that prayer had gone unanswered. Yet Apollo was the only god Will thought could help. As the god of medicine, surely he could find some remedy for whatever was affecting Nico.

When Will returned in summer, he had almost forgotten the state he’d left Nico in. When he had first returned from the quest, he had seemed fine. Will had even thought that maybe the two of them could date. That maybe they might have had a future together. Some part of Will had expected to find that version of Nico waiting for him when he returned to Camp Half-Blood.

At first, Will wasn’t sure Nico was even there. He didn’t show up for mealtimes and his cabin was never lit up. He tried to ask around to see where Nico might have gone, but nobody had seen him leave.

It became quickly evident that Nico wasn’t okay. Chiron pulled Will aside two nights after he’d arrived, his brow creased in such a way that it was obvious he was concerned.

“I think you might want to talk to Nico.” The Big House was quiet, with even Seymour asleep on the wall.

“I didn’t think he was even here.”

“He hardly leaves his cabin anymore. He won’t talk to anyone else, but maybe if you try…”

Will had taken Chiron’s words to heart. He knew there were others who knew Nico far better than he did, but they weren’t there. They wouldn’t be for a while, and Will had a feeling something needed to be done as soon as possible. He wanted Nico to get better, and if he could help, he would.

Nico didn’t seem to leave his cabin much if at all. Will worried he might be starving himself to death in there, or dead already, but he’d deal with that if he could draw Nico out.

“I know you’ve been avoiding me,” he murmured through the slats of wood comprising the side of the cabin. He slid down to the ground, his back to the wall. “I don’t blame you. I’m just… worried for you, Nico. You’ve always been one of the strongest people I’ve known, even back during the Battle of Manhattan. But you have limits and… none of us were there for you when you hit them. I… well, I can’t even pretend I know what’s troubling you, if you wanted to come out here, I could help. Maybe.”

The lack of response didn’t deter Will. He came back the next day.

“If you don’t want to talk, that’s fine. But, if you want to, maybe you could just… listen. I missed you, when I went back home. I worried that you weren’t doing alright. And it’s okay that you’re not. But if you want help in making things even sort of okay… you know where to find me. And uh… Chiron mentioned you liked McDonalds so I went out and got you some because you at least need to eat something.”

Will came every day, even when Camp Half-Blood was overrun by demigods from Camp Jupiter and Will, being part of the newly formed Welcoming Committee, was busy at almost every single second doing something for the incoming demigods.

It seemed that many of the Roman demigods had missed Nico as much as Will had, judging from the group that was gathered around his cabin about a week after they all had arrived. Hazel had been the first to ask about Nico, and though Will had directed her to the Hades cabin, she had heard no response from in there either.

“Gods damn it, Nico, we’ll break down the door if we have to!” Jason’s voice rose over the others, filled with the kind of anger born out of caring too much so common in parents.

Will’s eyes widened in realization. Nico hadn’t come out of the cabin even after almost three weeks of gentle talking; there was no way this wasn’t going to scare him half to death. Yet… these were the people who knew Nico better than anyone else around. Certainly better than Will did. Maybe that distance allowed him to see what Nico needed.

“Stop!” Will shouted, storming across from his own cabin to confront the group. He drew himself up to his full height, a respectable 5’7”, allowing himself a moment to get the attention of the Roman demigods who, other than Piper, were surely much more strategically trained when it came to battle. Also, most of them were larger than him.

Instead of saying anything else, Will moved towards the wall of the cabin, took a seat, and began to talk.

\---

A single voice broke through Nico’s panicked state. A voice that had been keeping him company every day for the past three weeks, that was getting him through the very worst of it. It didn’t fix anything – he didn’t know if anything could – but it took him away from the darkness for just a moment.

The second night it had happened, Nico had moved his bed to the wall where Will’s voice came through so he could hear it even on days when his nightmares and fears left him paralyzed.

“It’s okay, we won’t let anything hurt you. You don’t need to open the door, you don’t need to let us know how you’re doing. It’s okay.” Will always said that it was okay even when that couldn’t be farther from the truth, but somehow on bad days, those two words had become Nico’s mantra.

He couldn’t remember the last time he slept. _It’s okay._ He didn’t know if he could face his friends again. _It’s okay._ He wanted to talk again. _It’s okay._ He wanted the nightmares to go away. _It’s okay._ He wanted to be normal. _It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay._

“If you want to open the door, you can. It’s only me out here,” Will murmured after a long pause. “But if you don’t want to, that’s okay. But I’ll be here until sundown if you need me.”

Nico tried to disperse the remnants of the memory and still the shaking that was affecting not only his hands but also his entire body. He made his shaky way to the door, trying to ignore the voice in the back of his head screaming that he was doing the wrong thing. Screaming that if he showed Will his weakness he’d lose him forever. Nico’s hand froze on the doorknob.

 _It’s okay,_ Nico thought to himself, pushing open the door and, in turn, opening himself up. Will stood on the other side of the doorway, bathed in afternoon sunlight and looking almost like a god himself. If gods had freckles and goofy smiles that lit up entire rooms.

The door closed with Will now on the same side as Nico. He sat down carefully on one of the beds kept just in case another child of Hades showed up, then met Nico’s shy and constantly shifting gaze.

“It’s okay, Nico,” he murmured, reaching out his hand.

“It’s okay,” Nico repeated, his voice low and unsteady from disuse. His pale hand met Will’s tan one and, for the first time, he considered that maybe, maybe things might turn out okay. He would take it day by day, and he knew Will would help him to the very end. He didn’t have to be okay, but he was getting there. _It’s okay._


End file.
